Faith in the one God, never as easy as Pádraig had taught, is now sorely tested within the Érainn. The relentless march of the Fomoraic and the ice that Baalor brings both to destroy the land and to aid his unnatural war-hosts cannot be turned back by the cross alone, as the Uí Néill of the north and the Eóganachta of the south have found to their cost. Complacence is ever an ally to war-making but reliance on a God who preaches peace means nothing to cold steel and black armour, and whilst it is true that the cross has its own power many believe the Fomoraic - aye, and the raids of the Lochlannach, amongst them the savage Norse and the piratical Kernowek - can only be resisted by turning back to the old ways, the ways of the Fianna and of Danu, the power of the Gáe Bulg and Eriu itself; for surely devils of the sea have no power over those who find their strength from the earth.